Bingo!

When I was a child, our holidays were never the sun-drenched affairs of the well-heeled, sipping orange Fanta beneath a Mediterranean sky. No, our escapes were humbler, anchored firmly to the rugged North East coast, in the salt-lashed embrace of Cullercoats, near Whitley Bay. We never had the kind of money that could ferry us off to foreign climes, though we dreamt of it often enough, gazing wistfully at glossy travel brochures that fluttered, tauntingly, in the windows of high street travel agents. Instead, we settled for our familiar rituals – prize bingo, the Spanish City with its fairground clatter, a brief pilgrimage to the windswept beach, the outdoor pool at Tynemouth (where the water was always a shade too close to freezing), and, on the last night, one final indulgence: a Hammer House of Horror film on a temperamental black-and-white portable television, its flickering screen our curtain call before the journey home.

There was a prize bingo along the seafront in Cullercoats, and for much of the week, I surrendered my pennies there, feeding the dream of victory. Occasionally, I’d emerge triumphant, clutching a tin of boiled sweets, a second-rate teddy bear, or the prize I treasured most – tickets for free games, granting me another roll of the dice against fate. But more than the prizes, it was the people who fascinated me. Two, in particular, have never left me.

The first was a ragged old man, a relic of another time, his presence steeped in the acrid aroma of tobacco and stale sweat. He wore clothes so threadbare that even a tramp might have turned his nose up at them, their frayed edges and dubious stains testament to a life that had seen better days, or perhaps none at all. He was a strange figure – haggard yet oddly content, as if life’s blows had long since stopped stinging. His beard, once white, had succumbed to the relentless advance of grime, its wiry tendrils curling around a mouth that bore a toothless, unwavering grin.

He called himself lucky. And perhaps he was – at least when it came to bingo. He won more than most, though it seemed luck had failed to grace him in the wider lottery of life. Yet who was I to judge? He was untroubled, endlessly cheerful, and he swore blind that his fortune was transferable. Now and then, he’d reach out, pat my hand, and give it a good rub, declaring solemnly that his luck would linger on me like a charm. Maybe he was right – on occasion, I’d win a game or two, though his magic touch never seemed to stretch much further than the bingo hall.

Yet, in truth, his real gift was not luck at all, but something far more enduring: a kind of unshakable optimism, the ability to smile in the face of misfortune and make light of the heaviest burdens. Even now, when I find myself on a losing streak – not in bingo, but in life – I think of him, of that grin that defied hardship, and I remind myself that sometimes, perspective is worth more than a full house.

The second figure who lingers in my memory is an old woman, though she seemed more a creature of misfortune than a person. She was as gnarled as a windswept tree, her face a landscape of deep-set wrinkles, each one a chapter in a book of hardships. A tatty headscarf sat askew upon her head, and her pale blue raincoat, grubby and worn, hung off her like a forgotten relic. Her feet, encased in faded, floral-patterned slippers, barely shuffled across the bingo hall floor, as if she had neither the energy nor the will to lift them properly.

Her eyes – two small, beady marbles, framed by puffy folds of dark skin – peered out with a permanent air of suspicion. And always, lodged between her thin lips, was a hand-rolled cigarette, its ghostly tendrils of smoke curling lazily upwards, leaving a nicotine-stained smudge beneath her nose, like the mark of some forgotten sin.

She had no patience for winners. Whenever someone called out a victory – be it me, the old man, or anyone else – a sour murmur slithered from her mouth, half-whispered words of displeasure, as though the universe had conspired against her personally. I never quite warmed to her. While the old man radiated warmth, she was the creeping chill that seeped into your bones and refused to leave.

I must have been only eight years old then, those days now lying thirty-six years in the past. The old man and the bitter woman are surely long gone, their seats at the bingo hall empty, their presence little more than ghosts in my mind. And yet, they remain.

When life feels like an endless losing streak, the old woman lurks at the edges of my thoughts, muttering her discontent. But she never has the final word – for the old man is always there too, flashing that gummy grin, rubbing luck into my palm with the lightest touch, reminding me that, win or lose, a smile costs nothing.

I no longer play bingo.